County May Forfeit Frequencies if Radio System Misses Deadline

Federal authorities are threatening to rescind precious radio frequencies dedicated for an emergency communications system in Orange County unless the $84-million project meets an October construction deadline, officials said Tuesday.

The Federal Communications Commission system requires that at least one field radio be operating by mid-October. Six weeks before that deadline, the county has yet to finalize and sign a contract with Motorola Communications and Electronics Inc., officials said.

Costa Mesa City Manager Allan L. Roeder, saying the future of the law enforcement communications system is in doubt, has asked Orange County’s elected leaders in Washington to lobby the FCC to extend the October deadline.

“I do think we are in real jeopardy of losing channel allocation if we have no work in progress by October,” Roeder said. “And right now, we don’t know if we can meet that deadline. It is September now and we don’t even have a contract.”

To meet the construction deadline, the county must build a radio tower by the end of October.

But county officials are more optimistic. They say a final draft of the contract is being reviewed by both sides and that Motorola stands ready to meet the deadline.

“There is the possibility that if we don’t make progress, we run the risk of losing the assigned frequencies,” said Bob Griffith, director of the county’s General Services Agency, which is overseeing the project. “But I’m confident that we will meet the time frames required. If that doesn’t happen, we may need to make . . . a request for an extension.”

So far, the FCC has agreed only to extend the deadline for completing the project to June, 1997. But the agency has not committed to reserving the channels if the county fails to meet its first deadline.

“They have a license that has an expiration and they have to meet those obligations,” said Bob McNamara, a division chief at the FCC. If the county cannot meet its deadline, it would need a waiver, but has not yet applied for one, he said.

David Fiske, a spokesman for the FCC, said the competition for communications frequencies is fierce.

The county and 31 cities involved in the project are scrambling to keep the bankruptcy from delaying the communications system, but the financial crisis already has stalled the project by several months and drawn the attention of federal authorities.

Law enforcement agencies in Orange County say construction of a new system is critical to police and fire departments. The present system was built 23 years ago to accommodate a population of 1.5 million people. Orange County’s population is now estimated at more than 2.5 million.

The system is strained under normal circumstances, police and fire officials say. In the event of an emergency, most fear the fragile condition of the radio system will delay responses to emergencies and make coordination between departments impossible.

“This is something we really need,” Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates said.

The project has also been dogged by controversy. Another company, Ericsson Inc., has brought legal action contending the county improperly awarded the bid to Motorola in January, 1994, after a review by a consultant with an alleged conflict of interest. Ericsson claims it can build the system for $15 million less. The case is pending, but the county says the claim is without merit.

The county and cities also lost more than $5 million they had set aside for the project when the county’s investment pool collapsed last December. Those municipalities must find financing alternatives or scale back field equipment, Griffith said.

The cities involved in the network are also unhappy that the county will have 12 votes on a Joint Powers Authority that will administer the project, while the cities will have just one vote each.